


how brave the moon

by archekoeln



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: 100 word drabbles, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archekoeln/pseuds/archekoeln
Summary: Nimble fingers dance across her skin, trailing warmth with every little touch. Her lips curl upward. She listens.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nathalie Sancoeur, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Emilie Agreste/Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. nathalie sancoeur

**Author's Note:**

> a sort of sequel-but-not-really to [in the mouth of the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492151)
> 
> at this point, i'm probably just trying to stave off the inevitable burnout by randomly writing drabbles on my notes page during meetings
> 
> i like this format ngl
> 
> [title from inkskinned @ tumblr](https://ridinkskinned.com/post/629079790131019776/ten-word-poem-r-i-d)

The first time Nathalie holds the Peacock is the only time she begs for forgiveness. 

She asks:  _ Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? _

It used to settle by the foot of Emilie’s grave, like a trophy encased in glass. It used to belong to Emilie, pinned above her breast; a muted sea-green against her clean, white pant suits. It used to carry her fingerprints, marring the surface until Nbathalie rubbed away the prints with hers.

She thinks:  _ Has Gabriel ever thought to wipe it clean? _

_ Maybe not. _

Because for him, any trace of Emilie is worth preserving.

* * *

Nathalie tells herself that this is only temporary. 

The warmth beside her is unfamiliar territory. An ache rises in her throat that she fails to suppress. In the back of her mind, Gabriel’s fingers feel like a redemption. His hands, calloused, careful, feel like a beginning.

She shifts in her seat. He grips tighter as she doubles over, as she coughs out barbed wires, tasting the copper and mercury lining her lungs. 

In his eyes, she sees regret. She waits for him to stand, imposing and tall, lurking out of her reach as she stumbles through the bushes. 

He doesn't.

* * *

Emilie’s hands are warm and soft, slender and oh so thin. Her nails are growing longer again. The edges of her cuticles are unsightly to the eye, layered with clear polish and nothing else.

If there was one thing Emilie despised, it was unpolished nails.

The smell of acetone fills the air. Nathalie holds onto Emilie’s hand, feels for the wedding ring and finds it missing. Dull surprise color her cheeks. 

_ Since when has it been missing? Did Gabriel know?  _

Will Nathalie ask, knowing the anger that will seep through Gabriel’s skin when she implies that he’s lost something valuable?

* * *

Nathalie’s reflection stares back, half-naked and purple, with cheekbones sharp enough to cut, mouth drawn in a thin, taut line— dragging teeth across her lower lip, biting, expecting blood.

Obviously she’s frustrated. 

Maybe it’s because the progress of her recovery is agonizingly slow.

Nathalie opens her eyes and watches the ceiling spin. Around and around, like a carousel, like the moon, like  _ her, _ standing in the peripheral of the Earth, waiting.

She wonders if she should mold herself to be a companion rather than a satellite. If sand will slip through her fingers when she grasps it; if she will.

* * *

At first, it is the pinkness of her eyes. At first, the veins on her skin.

At first, it is how Nathalie asks her hairdresser to cut her hair, the shortest she’s decided on a whim. 

Gabriel’s reaction when he enters the atelier and sees her is nothing short of a  _ moment. _

It’s silly to think of it like that but there is something so vindicating in the way his jaw drops and how he turns back to look at her, eyes wide;

or how he notices the thin strip of silver over her bare neck; 

or how he flees.

* * *

Nathalie decides that she will be spending her last moments alone, staring at the ceiling of her room.

Her sins are heavy on her empty conscience. 

The fluorescent bulb above her flickers, on and off. She knows that it will die without a moment’s notice. She has been expecting it for the last few days; putting off buying a new bulb to replace the old, withering one.

She loved once, twice, thrice; the same people, the same circumstance. The wish is a hoax she believed in because Gabriel did. 

The point is moot isn’t it?

She’s  _ still _ dying, after all.

* * *

The pity on his face feels like a hundred mosquitos kissing her skin. Splotchy and red and itchy. She wonders if anything about dying feels just like  _ this;  _ hoping that the next day isn’t spent sprawled on her bed, staring at the dead lightbulb hanging above her head.

Gabriel will not be cowed by the remains of her everything littering the floor of her bedroom. Maybe he will leave when he realizes that she is stuck to her covers, movement halted by her complete unwillingness to live. 

And yet, Nathalie wakes up to the unfamiliar scent of blueberries beside her.

* * *

There are dreams.

And then, there are  _ dreams. _

The difference lies only on how she finds herself wanting and not. Or, how she finds herself wishing and not.

Nathalie kisses a stranger on a taxi ride home. The stranger is sweet on her mouth, like a small serving of peaches.

Maybe it’s her that pulls the stranger into her home first. Maybe the stranger accepts when Nathalie erupts into pink red blossoms, and that stranger takes it , smears it across their cheeks.

Maybe that stranger turns pink red into yellow, into green, before Nathalie finds herself awake, wishing and wanting.

* * *

Before she had been bruised by fever dreams and aching loneliness, there was a cottage by the sea. She doesn’t remember anything about wind hissing through open windows, about noise entirely familiar to her ears.

_ This is ours, Emilie. _

Now, showered by the greys of a crying sky, drizzling and wet, Nathalie only thinks of emptiness. Standing barefoot, glass digging between her toes, counting coral, swallowing saltwater, forgetting an eternity spent in her arms—

And now? How does it compare to a sprawling mansion bathed in artificial blue lights and white pillars, cold concrete, grand empty spaces devoid of company?

* * *

At night, two boys knock on her door to whisper faint _Goodnights and_ _Sweet Dreams._ It’s not hard to tell which of the two say which. 

Adrien knocks three times. His voice is timid when he speaks through her locked door. He never tries to open it. 

Gabriel knocks once. He is calm. The handle jiggles but she locks her door and ignores the irritation bleeding through his skin. 

Nathalie chews on her lower lip. He leaves.

He will try again in three hours, holding the master key. She will be asleep. She will never know what will happen next.


	2. adrien agreste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the adrinette tag is literally only for the last drabble. thats it.
> 
> in other news, half of this i wrote during this one meeting. the other half i wrote at 2am so if nothing makes sense, blame it on that.

When Adrien thinks about his situation, it really is laughably like a soap opera.

Nino had said it, hadn’t he? 

_ Rich boy trapped in a glass home, an absentee father, a dead mother— a celebrity in love with a goddess, an empty childhood, when will you grow up?  _

_ A father figure in his bodyguard, an assistant in an affair— a superhero, a boy asking for his freedom. _

_ A smile wide enough to eclipse the sun, a sudden sickness in his belly, a moon half-eaten by grief—  _

If he mulls about it all for a little while longer, he might cry.

* * *

Adrien is far more grateful to Nathalie than he is of his father. She embodies  _ Maman _ in every positive way. 

The twinkle in her eyes when he sees her watching him play piano; the way she picks up Chinese with him just so he has someone to practice with; how her books litter his shelves because she thinks he will enjoy them.

It had been difficult to move on from Maman’s death. Father (doesn’t) tell him that she is dead but it  _ must be _ if she hasn’t yet returned.

At least Nathalie is there.

And then he hears her coughing.

* * *

Adrien notices.

Of course, Adrien has _ always _ noticed. When Nathalie stares at the wall a little too long, waiting for him to finish, he asks if she’s fine. When he sees her grip on the table, knuckles white from the force of it, he asks if she should still be standing. When he catches her clutching her chest, or the bloodied tissue stuffed haphazardly in her coat pocket, he asks if he should call an ambulance.

_ Yes, I’m fine. _

_ It’s just a dizzy spell. It will pass. _

_ No. I’m fine. Thank you. _

**Are you really?**

**Are you lying to me?**

* * *

It never leaves his thoughts.

He wants to think that he is mature enough for answers. Maybe he wants to hide in his closet or under his bed covers and ignore the signs. He opens his palms to stare at his ring, dulled in the brightness of his room.

_ Maman used to have symptoms like that. Maman is gone. Nathalie has the same symptoms. The same sickness? Will she be gone soon too? _

_ Will I be left alone with Father? _

Adrien loves his father, of course, but he can’t stand to part with anyone else in his empty, lonely life.

* * *

In the grand scheme of things, Adrien feels like he is an afterthought. A belated realization. 

Empathy is not his father's best trait. There's no such thing for a successful designer in such a cutthroat world. 

He thinks of  _ Maman, _ how she inspired empathy from his father.

Or he does so, until he backtracks. _ Maman  _ has never been especially nice to others that aren’t him and his father. 

Adrien tries looking back again, wracking his memories for any instance of his soft  _ Maman _ ; who held him and kissed him and loved him. 

That soft smile, pearl and diamond and lies.

* * *

Father says he will wish for  _ Maman _ to come back.

That’s it. That’s all he wants.

_ Wanted. _

Adrien’s ring and Marinette’s earrings are in Papillon’s hands and Mayura is standing behind him. Something is lodged in his chest, barring anger and disappointment and grief and awe and fear and—

The gods circle around them. They are both Tikki and Plagg  _ and not _ and this new god laughs as Gabriel Agreste attempts the impossible.

It feels like the ground swallowing him whole when Mayura cries and when Father crumples to the ground; when Marinette takes his hand; when the gods disappear.

* * *

Underneath the mask, Adrien vanishes.

Chat Noir makes the streets of Paris his runway. He is freedom. 

In Adrien’s eyes, Chat Noir is everything.

That was before he died. Figuratively. Or, literally. Or, how does he explain?

The aftermath is a blur. One moment, he is holding Marinette’s hand; the next, he is ushered into his room, Nathalie shaking as she closes the door behind her. Half of her is still in that basement, holding Father close; and half of her is with Adrien, tongue swollen with lies he remembers from  _ Maman. _

She says  _ I’m sorry _ and he believes her.

* * *

In the end, everyone leaves.

_ Maman _ is gone. 

Father is gone. The company is gone. Grenier is gone. Nathalie is gone.

His friends, his family,  _ everyone.  _

Adrien stares at the half-eaten moon, blinks as dust mar the pristine white of his suit. 

_ His lady is gone. _ She is dust washed by the flooding of Paris. When he shot the sky, when the world ended.

He imagines it would have been different if he hadn’t been given the ring stuck to his finger or if his father weren’t the villain, or if he wasn’t a hero.

And then he wakes up.

* * *

Matters of love have often escaped him.

It takes Adrien years to realize that the woman sitting across him is the one, or that she is everything. He bleeds red and black spots and thinks how he is an idiot for ignoring the signs.

The specters of Ladybug and Chat Noir dangle between them. That last moment so long ago. They settle by the spaces between his ribs, like butterflies in his stomach. 

If he can put away the years of yearning, maybe they can start again.

When he kisses Marinette for the first time, she bites his tongue off.

* * *

Nimble fingers dance across her skin, trailing warmth with every little touch. Her lips curl upward. She listens.

He hums the tunes his mother used to sing, lullabies far too old for him to remember the meaning of. Father once said that  _ Maman  _ knew so much of another tongue that he never quite understood. 

Books that hid her secrets. Magic in her every touch. 

No one ever came close to how she held Adrien's hand during thunderstorms and horror movies.

_ “No one?”  _ Marinette titters; feeling the slow ebb of Adrien's ministrations against her pulse.

_ “No one until you.”  _ Adrien responds.


End file.
